And the Hits Just Keep On Comin'

That business about Silver Convention that I wrote about the other day leads to another question: Which act had the most hits, all of which reached the Top Ten? For a long time, I thought this record was held by the odious Milli Vanilli, which placed five songs not just in the Top Ten but in the Top Five before exploding in a sea of backing tapes and hair extensions.

It does make sense: The artist who holds this record is likely to be someone who has a lot of early success, then totally disappears from the charts. Dying isn't enough; posthumous hits tend to wander into the lower reaches of the Top Forty.

Many artists have looked as if they'd beat Milli's record easily. The Lovin' Spoonful's first seven hits all went to the Top Ten, before "Darling Be Home Soon" topped out at Number 15. The Captain and Tennille matched the Vanilli Brothers by having their first five hits all go to the Top Five. The Jackson Five's first six hits all went to the Top Five (Top Two, as a matter of fact). More recently, the R&B singer Monica had her first nine hits all make the Top Ten, until breaking the string with "U Should've Known Better," which went to Number 19.

All of those artists could have had Rob and Fab's record, but blew it. One who didn't, though was the actress and singer Gale Storm, star of TV's "My Little Margie" in the early Fifties. She was already an established TV star when a record exec heard her singing on the "Colgate Comedy Hour" in 1954 and signed her to a record deal. Storm's very first release, a cover of "I Hear You Knocking," went to Number Two late in 1955, and her next five hits (including a cover of "Why Do Fools Fall in Love") all followed it into the Top Ten, giving her an unbroken string of six Top Ten hits.

Storm's recording career more or less ended at that point in favor of her own sitcom and appearances in Vegas. Good thing, too, because I always hated Milli Vanilli.